Archive for year: 2015

My son’s love affair started with helicopters. He would hear them in his cot, grab the side-rails, tilt back his blonde-locked headand start shouting gadagadagada, imitating the sound of the chopper as it flew overhead.

And that was often. We live in that part of Cape Town known as the city bowl, which comprises the foot-slopes of Table Mountain, with Devil’s Peak and Signal Hill to either side. The city skies are rarely empty of helicopters in summer, either filming Hollywood car-chases over-head, tourists on an aerial fly-by or emergency choppers rescuing unsuspecting hikers and climbers. And sometimes the Italian and French naval vessels have popped past – caryring helicopters.

Again and again he would watch an old VHS National geographic video of a curious, young American pilot flying over Africa, landing in exotic destinations. While I would wonder why I’d never done that (I suppose a pilot’s license would be a start) his mother swore she could recite the commentary in her sleep. In Cape Town’s sothern suburb of Tokai – the other side of the mountain – an old air force training plane, the Italian aermacchi, or ‘impala’, as we knew it, stands nearby where a fresh produce market. We visited with Fynn even before he could walk.

So, being two years into fatherhood I did what I reckon all good parents would do, and took him to an airshow at the local military airbase. He was two and sitting on my shoulders when the Saab Gripen flew low over the crowd.

He burst out crying. I walked briskly away from the oohs and aahs of the crowd towards one of the hangars housing a more sedate exhibition. I felt horribly guilty for bringing him to such a loud place that made even my ribs vibrate.

As we reached the entrance he tugged on my shoulder and said ‘more, more!’ And so we turned around and headed back to the spectators lining the runway. By the age of three he was fully into flying, his first real passion, as you see

What’s really blown me away as a parent has been how boys and girls are wired. That even without being pushed or directed as many parents will do, my son from the earliest age would gravitate to the ‘boy stuff’, like cars and planes, and likewise his sister to the dolls.

So I try to encourage his natural likes. His uncle has always been nuts about flying and sent him a Red Arrows flying suit from Scotland a few years ago. His cousin, some 15 years older, gave him his precious collection of toy model aircraft a few years back (in retrospect, I’d rather suggest holding on to precious / valuable things until they are around 7 years).

Today everything for my boy is about star wars lego. I think it helps to encourage different interests, and doubt we would need a psychologist to confirm that. I find that exposure to a variety of interests helps, with the result that his current fall-back favourite is anything to do with octopi or squids – preferably using their beaks. Enjoyment, curiosity and stimulation are all positive, and contribute to the makings for a happy family.

PS – since first writing this, his interests are now evenly spread between guant squids and octopii, the Red Baron, soccer and star wars.

There can be few greater joys for a young child than being exposed to the natural world at a young age. Those early days of catching frogs, chasing butterflies and feeling the bark of a tree is a gift. It’s also natural, especially for boys; I give Fynn a net, he says ‘let’s go catch frogs !’

They don’t know it yet, but introducing children to the natural world on their own terms allows for a subconscious appreciation of the world in which they are connected to, are part of. It also stimulates their curiosity.

As much as they enhance skills probably essential to our children’s social and professional development, iPads and phones are not part of their natural world. This randomly selected link speaks to that subject http://www.pbs.org/parents/childrenandmedia/article-when-introduce-child-smartphone-tablet.html.

Nets are good for frogs, almost essential. A bucket of sorts is useful for holding the creatures caught. My son likes to catch them with his hands when a net isn’t available, as in the picture below with his mate and her two children in one of the ponds at Kistenbosch Botanical gardens*. ‘Hey dad, check this out” or ‘I’ve got one!’ he shouts, pure happiness ringing out across the weekday afternoon ripples. When it’s hot, this is literally a cool environment for the children (and you).

Some adults, probably most, don’t like slimy and squirmy things in their hands. Probably because they never held them as little children. Much like I’ve always hated slugs, and snails.

I got over that manic wriggling of worms when I got my own worm farm, and the snails, oh the snails…I eventually ate one in my 30-somethings in yes, France, which incidentally tasted like a mushroom vol-au-vent.

Frogs are easy to handle, and their little hearts tire quickly. So tempering my boy’s sometimes relentless pursuit is sometimes necessary, with the little amphibian’s legs simply unable to kick anymore. Putting them in a container or lunchbowl allows the kids to return and check their haul when it’s time to call it a day.

So allowing them to play and hold such things now is really doing them a favour. Especially the guys. Apart from that, for children there large lawns in beautifully manicured gardens (no ball sports) paved paths, dirt-trails and the funky, designer tree canopy-bridge called ‘boomslang’. Perfect for picnics.

I’ve got left-over rice from the night before. Let’s say it’s basmati brown, because however they spin it on the latest white bread packaging, anything white is nutritionally a bit like eating paper – which I’d rather not feed to my children **. Basmati has a nice taste anyway, and I’m thinking rice ‘n cheese fritters would be good; if my son can tear himself away from his Star Wars lego game, he might even want to cook.

But let’s hold the fritters right there. As I have raised the subject of food and children, I need to get something off my chest.

If you’re reading this I don’t need to ask whether you love your child more than your car. But I will put it out there that some people treat their cars better than their child.

Spaghetti is fun, penne is cool, but if we’re talking about growing healthy children here, my layman research (with a couple of my TV doccies as background) will reveal that pasta is essentially an empty carbohydrate, which means it doesn’t offer nutrition to growing bodies. I’d like to say it’s like putting sugar-water into your petrol tank, but that would be a bit drastic. So it’s fine for a weekly dish.

Let’s face it, no child was born screaming for pasta, or sugar on strawberries. It’s the parents’ choice; grown-ups who are driven by advertisements, peer pressure and the obvious fun involved with twirling long strands of spaghetti around the fork.

I make a cool macaroni cheese. But I serve it once a week, and it’s brown. Oh wow, that sounds so sensible, spoken like I’m part of a normal family, a nuclear unit. But I’m not. ‘We’ are not.

We’re broken on a few levels, nutrition being one of them. If my efforts at inculcating positive values, eating habits and regular activity are the macaroni, it’s as if my significant other left the dish under the grill and tossed its blackened self into the bin.

Eating well is, to a large degree, about learnt behaviour. And balance.

As with the bicycle helmet, saying thank you and brushing his teeth, if my child grows up eating badly, he’ll carry that behaviour forward into his adult life. I’d like to think we should eat to live, to sustain ourselves, to operate at our best, with a lashing of yumminess. Living to eat speaks to a psychological, emotional condition that I don’t want visited on my child.

But it doesn’t have to be like that if we feed our children correctly from the get-go.

In contrast to pasta, brown rice, potatoes and sweet potatoes all offer complex carbs packed with what nutritionists call the right glycaemic index and nutrients valuable for my children’s growth. As for the fruit ‘n veg, I make a real effort to encourage his interest in the range of colours available, like the multicoloured peppers, carrots, superfood broccoli and steamed beans for ‘the green’. Served with lemon, a little butter (while they’re hot) and rock-salt, they’re crunchy and tasty, and my son doesn’t need to be told to finish his beans. Yes, it takes time, but…hello ?

Now back to the fritters.

So, to the left-over rice add a third of that quantity in flour. Don’t be anal about it, but organic if you can (I’ll explain why on another occasion).

Mix in two eggs, grate in a mature, strong-tasting cheddar and whatever herbs you like; grow them, it’s a healthy focus and distraction (if you need it).

Cut in some peppers (which you can grow btw by scraping the seeds from the peppers you slice up and leaving them to dry). Or add in some sliced up beans or broccoli. Maybe some chutney or slow-cooked tomato and onion mix, and fry them on a ready, hot pan.

My mom made simple versions of these for me when, as a six year-old, I didn’t want to go to my new school after moving back to South Africa. It was a bribe.

Please let me know how it tastes, and share your own ideas. I’m running out of easy dishes, and anyway spending time in the kitchen alone – while waiting for that woman-on-a-white-stallion who will eat my fritters – is over-rated.

** For instance, what about the plastic polymer found in mass-produced commerciall breads to make them more spongy and fresh-seeming? The following story speaks about one global franchise http://abcnews.go.com/Health/subway-takes-chemical-sandwich-bread-protest/story?id=22373414 – but it’s probably best, since we eat so much of the stuff, to make sure the stuff used in yoga mats and shoe soles is not in our breads.

I never quite attached the importance to shoelaces that I did last year, the sixth time the earth has circled the earth since my son was born. We had sat on his floor a bunch of times, him fumbling with those laces, me silently willing him to get it right while offering mild encouragement.

Being aware that he has limited patience for fiddly things, akin to my own, I understood the frustration that I was witnessing.

I remember when collecting him from school on ‘my day’, that a classmate was sitting on the brick floor outside the classroom, tying his laces. Around him, children grappling with bags half their size stumbled towards their waiting mothers*, but the boy remained resolute, focused, and finally stood with a look of triumph.

My first thought was a vaguely competitive ‘hey, we have to practise’. That was something of a knee-jerk, primitive response, but looking back, I hadn’t been here before. With each new developmental day comes a new experience, but I knew this was a landmark event, along with learning to ride a bike and catching his first frog.

Allied to this sense of understanding and appreciation, was a realisation that at his mom’s house he didn’t have lace-ups, only those shoes with velcro straps. Which meant no opportunity to practice.

Yes, they’re much easier to put on and take off, but learning this skill is obviously a non-negotiable that will equip him in his battle with the drawstring in his shorts, and I suppose later on with knotting the rope in the tree he wants to swing from, like the one outside our home.

Luckily this was happening a few months ago, as winter got going and footwear – as opposed to slip-slops – were a necessity. It would’ve been harder now, with summer at last here, as I support he and his little sister going barefoot as often as possible and when appropriate.

But that’s all history now, he’s pretty much got it mastered. Check this out from a few months back:

Yes, he did start with the laces the wrong way around, but here’s a tip (if it’s needed): it’s important to let our children make mistakes, to give them the chance to work them out themselves. The sense of achievement visible on his face when he got it right was a highlight of my year, almost up there with learning to ride his bike.

I will soon be sharing that experience, plus the process of learning to read with this excellent reader I came across. In the meantime when I get my boy this weekend after ten days apart, we’ll fit in a shoelace refresher, working on that coordination needed to tighten those laces. Further down the line, when he turns seven in February, we’ll have a separate bunch of challenges on our hands.

If you have your own tales of success, failures and lessons learnt, please share with me, and in so doing help us all learn from each other.

Parentally, Happily and Paternally Yours 🙂

* not too many dads seem to do the pick-ups at our school. Luckily I work for myself, and with minimal time to see him I treasure the opportunity to learn about what’s going on in his world, even if it’s just a lift, so he knows his dad is present.